Dodgydumpling by Dawn • Singapore • Food, recipes and random photography: Root Beer Cake with Water Chocolate Ganache // Recipe

The first time I tried the root beer cake at Wimbly Lu, I was hooked. If you've tried it, then you must know what I mean. It really is quite magical. I scoured the www for recipes and finally decided on one that was adapted from the book Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. It's a simple recipe - far simpler than a mango mousse cake I attempted yesterday.

The sponge itself carries a bit of root beer flavor, but it not distinguishable. It camouflages with the strong chocolate flavor. Those with discerning taste buds have an advantage here!

I made this cake even less root-beerish by topping it with a chocolate emulsion instead of root beer frosting. It didn't steal the limelight and Fi thought the cake was shop-worthy, which is an incredible praise because he is quite particular... when it comes to my baking. Anything anywhere else is fine, but when it comes from my kitchen, yada yada yada yada.......

A mixture of chocolate and water is the classic example of a kitchen faux pas. One drop of water in your tempered chocolate and there goes all your effort. And yet this mousse/ganache/emulsion/whatever you'd like to call it, defies that chemistry and calls for just that two ingredients. Quite amazing! If you're interested, here's the mechanism (oh my god my inner chemistry student is starting to overtake me): chocolate, at room temperature, is a solid. When it is melted in water, essentially a hot liquid mixture is formed. When this mixture is cooled in the ice bath and continuously whisked, the chocolate will want to return to its solid state but instead, the mixture traps tiny air bubbles and starts to thicken to form a mousse. And that's it.

If you're using chocolate with high cocoa content, you might want to add some sugar into the mixture. I used 58% cocoa content and added 1 tablespoon of white sugar.